- Life and Times of Frank Pennebaker: 1917-2009
Frank Pennebaker wrote a history of his life leading up to his 90th birthday celebration in 2007 that was held at the Eureka United Methodist Church. The following is the story of Frank in his own words.
“Frank was born on a farm a mile west and a mile north of Virgil, Kansas, on October 11, 1917, to Estella and Alvan Pennebaker. They were married in 1906 and Frank was the youngest of four children. The farm belonged to Frank’s grandparents, John and Eva Pennebaker until his grandfather died. Frank’s dad and family moved to the Virgil farm from the Walnut, KS. area after Frank’s grandparents built a house in Virgil. Frank’s grandparents had four children.
Frank’s family moved into Virgil in 1922 into a small house on the west side of the “Babe” Morey garage and Frank’s father started working as the school custodian. Frank started to school at age five. Frank’s father later had a chance to buy a harness and shoe repair shop next to the hardware store on a street going east and west in town. Frank’s mother started a ladies’ hat business in the front part of the harness and shoe repair building.
Frank bought a used bicycle from a neighbor and started delivering the Kansas City Star and Times Daily newspaper when he was about ten-years-old, and carried it until he graduated from high school in 1935. During school days, Frank would start delivering the papers during the noon hour in the north end of town, stop off at home for lunch and then deliver it in the south part of town on the way back to school in the afternoon.
When Frank lived at home, they had three cows and once in a while a couple of hogs, which they butchered for meat. They also had chickens and a billy goat that liked to butt you. Frank remembers staying up late at night grinding those hogs into sausage, which Frank’s mother would then fry down and pack it into lard in a big stoneware jug. Frank remembers his mother digging out the sausage for breakfast, baking biscuits and making good sausage gravy and a large bowl of oatmeal.
Frank’s family sold milk all over town when they had the cows and it was Frank’s job to deliver it. They also had homemade butter all the time. Frank rode his bicycle everywhere, even to deliver the milk. Once in a while, Frank would spill some of the milk. It was Frank’s job to drive the cows out to the pasture every morning after milking and get them back in every evening to milk, Frank also milked them. They had a large barn behind their house and a mixture of cows, one Holstein, one Jersey and a Guernsey. They got rid of the cows about the time the family started the grocery business. They always had a garden and Frank’s mother enjoyed planting flowers.
Frank liked to go hunting as a kid and would take his .22 short pump gun and hunt squirrels and rabbits. Frank still had the rifle when this article was written. When Frank’s father was deputy sheriff in Virgil, they raided a still south of Virgil in a grove of trees. The men running the still took off and left the rifle and Frank acquired the rifle from his father when Frank was about 10 or 12 years-old.
A fire on December 26, 1928 burned down the IOOF Hall, the grocery store his family ran, the drug store and theater. The grocery store and the IOOF Hall above the grocery were rebuilt. One of Frank’s brothers, Charles, ran the movies in the theater, next door to the grocery store and had his shoe shop next to the theater.
Frank’s father died of pneumonia in 1912, when Frank was 12 years-old. Frank’s mother started a cash and carry grocery store in the front part of the IOOF building. Frank graduated from Virgil High School in 1935 with eleven classmates.
Frank’s mother remarried J.L. Porter in 1939. He lived on a farm north of Virgil and had lost his wife earlier. They kept it a secret for several months until he moved into her house in Virgil. Through this marriage Frank acquired 12 step-brothers and step-sisters. Only one child, Corine, was living at home at that time. J.L. died in 1953.
Frank’s first car was a 1929 Model A Coupe, with a rumble seat in it. Frank used it to carry the mail until he saved up enough money to trade it in on a used 1938 four door Chevrolet, and just before Frank got married, he traded it off for a new 1940 four door Bel Aire Chevrolet.
Frank met Virginia Mae Strahm at a Pure Oil baseball field 6 miles east of Virgil. Her parents lived in a small oil camp community called St. Louis. Her father, Chris Strahm, ran a garage there. It was just across the Greenwood County line in Coffee County, east of a community called Hill Top, which was north of Virgil a few miles.
Frank dated Virginia until they decided to get married. Frank had been working as a substitute mail carrier and had a 55-mile route around Virgil. The day Frank got married his brother, John, got the job as regular mail carrier, so Frank lost the job.
Frank and Virginia were married in Uniontown, KS. on March 24, 1940. The minister who married them had been at the Virgil
Methodist Church when Frank was growing up. He was responsible for leading Frank to Jesus Christ, his savior, and Frank had kept track of him and his wife after they had left Virgil. Frank’s mother and husband, his sister, Edna and her husband, Walter Fuhlhage, and Virginia’s parents, all rode with Frank and Virginia to the wedding. The eight of them were all in the new Chevy on their way home from Uniontown when Frank lost control of the car on the snowy highway. The right rear wheel dropped off the highway and they slide across the road to the other side and hit a side road bridge abutment. Frank’s mother cracked a couple of ribs, banged Edna’s head up against the rear- view mirror and tore the knee out of Frank’s new wedding suit. They were lucky that no one was seriously hurt. Edna did have to have a few stiches.
Virginia’s dad caught a ride into Iola to the Chevrolet dealer and they came out and hauled the car into the garage. They came home in a new car like the one Frank wrecked that day. They were supposed to get back to the St. Louis area for a big dinner, but missed that.
After getting married, Frank bought and moved into the house in Virgil that his grandfather built, a couple blocks north of the grocery store, on the east side. The house was still there in 2007.
Frank and Virginia left for California the next week, with his mother, step-dad and Aunt Amy and Pat Bertenshaw from Fall River, Kansas. They visited Uncle Harlan Pennebaker in Manteka, California. On their way home they stopped in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Frank went to work in the grocery store in Virgil
for awhile after they got home from California. Brother Charles went to work in Wichita for Beech Aircraft, so Frank decided to go look for work there also. Frank’s first job was brief in Wichita, working at a Safeway store. He then worked at Western Auto and finally at Boeing as an inspector.
Karen Ann and Myrna Jean, two of his children were born in Wichita. Frank was deferred from the draft a couple of times until the Greenwood County draft caught up with him in March of 1945. He was sent to Fort Fanning in Tyler, Texas.
During boot camp, Germany and Japan surrendered, so Frank thought he might get out of the military to go home, but instead he was sent overseas to “occupied” Japan. He worked serving food on the ship going over and was assigned to the Signal Corp housed at General McArthur’s headquarters in Tokyo. He was out of the service by the fall of 1946. His wife and one daughter rode the train to California to meet him. Myrna, his other daughter had some health problems and stayed home with Virginia’s mother. She had moved back to Virgil into a big two-story house south across the alley from Frank’s mother, called the Blackburn house.
Frank’s mother sold the grocery store to Frank (Penny’s Food Market) and Frank bought a smaller house a block north of his mother’s. A son, Keith, was born in 1949 and Lynn in 1953. Both were born in Emporia. Frank made several improvements to the store, added a walk-in-cooler so they could hang sides of beef that Frank cut up. Frank hired several local young people and even some relatives to help him in the store. Virginia’s brother, Virgil worked there and Frank’s brother Charles’s son David would come from Wichita during the summer to work. Frank’s children Karen, Myrna and Keith also worked there. They had a lot of family dinners and reunions in the upstairs of the IOOF building, called Porter’s Hall that was right above “Penny’s Food Market”.
About 1960 Frank decided to sell the store. Sherman’s bought it and moved the contents to about the place where Frank’s dad had his harness shop. Frank did some oil field work for a short time after he sold the store.
In 1960, after son Karen had graduated from Virgil High School, Frank got a job in Eureka in the Soil Conservation Service under Kenneth Van Cleave. Frank’s job was surveying ponds, waterways and terraces and inspecting them.
Myrna, Keith and Lynn all graduated from Eureka High School, got married and along with Karen, brought 8 grandchildren into the world, one being a stepson.
Virginia and Frank made many friends in Eureka and were active in the Eureka Methodist Church. They started the Flintstone RV Club and had lots of fun on weekend camping trips. They started with a pop-up camper, then a pull trailer and bought several 5th wheel RVs. They were in every state except the 5 southeastern states and even traveled in Canada. In 1980 Frank retired and they traveled with friends, Ruth and Max McIntosh and many others. In 1982 Frank had four bypass surgery on his heart.
In about 1982 they began traveling to LaFeria, Texas, to spend about three months each winter, which they continued to do until 2006. They had purchased a park model there and used it for several years and sold it in the summer of 2007. On March 24, 2007 they celebrated their 67th Anniversary. They had 10 great grandchildren at that time.
Frank celebrated his 50th year as a Mason and held many positions in the Methodist Church.
They still go to the Virgil reunions and there is only one of Frank’s classmates living in 2007. They were still playing cards with friends, Edna and Clell Barb from El Dorado and Jack and Rita Niles from Eureka Lake. Frank and Virginia were living at Gran Villa in Eureka when Virginia in 2008 after a short illness died. Frank died in June of 2009.
During the time he worked for the Soil Conservation Service, he had the responsibility of designing and checking out 1,054 stock water ponds, 223 miles of terraces, 102 miles of diversion, 363 acres of waterways and 64 grade stabilization structures. He was a rodman on the Fall River Watershed before coming to the Eureka field office.”
(Courtesy photo)
